(Poll) Would you like a more accessible way to play on older versions of the game?

[Guille6785]

For those not aware, downpatching is the process of reverting to an older version of the game. Anyone with a legal copy of the game on Steam can do this by following this process, which isn't all that complicated, and you'd be surprised to find out that even the oldest versions of DST still support multiplayer, meaning any number of people can agree to downpatch to the same version and play together on that patch. Even beta versions of the game are supported for downpatching, which is how a speedrun competition was held for the original pre-nerf version of Toadstool.

That said, downpatching is still an incredibly obscure feature, partly because of how few people even know it's possible and also because of how annoying the process is. Even though the steps aren't hard to follow, the main roadblock is the awful download speed of older versions, which can take like 2 hours and is probably the main reason why speedrunners are pretty much the only people who even bother to do this at all, but interestingly enough I've seen a fair bit of people outside of those circles express interest in playing on older versions of the game for reasons that have nothing to do with speedrunning; some people just miss old content that was removed, some people just had a specific patch in mind where they found the game to be the most enjoyable (since admittedly Klei are a little trigger happy when it comes to changing or removing all sorts of stuff), and some would just like to host a dedicated server in an older patch, but everyone I've seen runs into the same problem of downpatching just being too obscure and inconvenient to actually bother.

That's why I'm curious to measure what other people would think about Klei providing a more "official" and accessible way to downpatch, be it some sort of dropdown menu in the Klei website that automatically downlods a patch for you or whatever. Off the top of my head, I can't name any other games that do this, but I've been told Terraria has something similar, and I assume Minecraft does as well (otherwise idk how their speedrun leaderboards are full of people on every patch imaginable, but I might need correction on this). Personally, while I don't mind playing on current patch most of the time, sometimes the live service nature of DST makes every time a new update comes out a stressful event since Klei inevitably end up changing existing mechanics for better or for worse, but I'm curious to see other people's opinions.

[YouKnowWho142]

Downpatching is a nice thing to have, though I understand why it wouldn’t really be a priority for them, seeing as most people wouldn’t be particularly interested in it especially due to dst’s nature as a live service game. I think it’ll have more of a place when and if they decide to do more reworks to biomes and mobs, so that people can go back to it, but even in the current state of dst there just really isn’t a whole ton of differences to a lot of older content from then and now (aside from characters ofc)

[Well-met]

Don't really care, as modding easily allows reverting what you want

It's also not in a developer's interest to tell people to move away from their efforts.

[YouKnowWho142]

Like, you mentioned terraria and Minecraft as examples, and those games looked and felt drastically different in their older versions. I think it’s because dst is derived from a game that already existed and just expanded upon (solo don’t starve). Now, if solo don’t starve could downpatch, that’d be arguably more interesting even, seeing as dst was built from an existing base and solo don’t starve spent its first few years becoming what it is now

[lowercase skye]

15 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

-snip-

You seem pretty knowledgeable on the topic, are you aware of if there's a way to downpatch to the Return of Them beta versions? I've always wanted to play around with making a "perfect" world by starting with the update that added caves, dipping into each subsequent update with specific changes I want and rolling back repeatedly until they retrofit exactly how I'd like, and then finally playing it on the most recent version. But a roadblock I reach is that the perfectly square ocean only existed during the beginning of the Turn of Tides beta, and I've never been able to figure out if it's possible to download builds from the ReturnOfThemBeta branch, or if it even exists in any publicly accessible way anymore.

[Guille6785]

3 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

You seem pretty knowledgeable on the topic, are you aware of if there's a way to downpatch to the Return of Them beta versions? I've always wanted to play around with making a "perfect" world by starting with the update that added caves, dipping into each subsequent update with specific changes I want and rolling back repeatedly until they retrofit exactly how I'd like, and then finally playing it on the most recent version. But a roadblock I reach is that the perfectly square ocean only existed during the beginning of the Turn of Tides beta, and I've never been able to figure out if it's possible to download builds from the ReturnOfThemBeta branch, or if it even exists in any publicly accessible way anymore.

The process described in the guide I linked worked for downloading the beta Toadstool patch (which was significantly older than the RoT beta), so in theory the process should be the exact same, you'd just need to find the Manifest ID of the RoT beta, which I unfortunately don't really know where to find so I'll wait for someone smarter than me to kindly provide the method to find it (8352074468619362031 was the manifest ID of the Toadstool beta, so I know it should be accessible somewhere)

[Maxil20]

13 minutes ago, Well-met said:

It's also not in a developer's interest to tell people to move away from their efforts.

When Terraria announced “Undeluxe Edition” (version 1.0.6, AKA before hardmode) as a playable version via a steam beta branch as a pseudo-april fools joke, people universally praised the ability to revert to an old version, so much so they added additional branches for other versions before major releases (one before 1.2, and one before 1.3). This isn’t accounting for the community-made downpatcher to allow you to go between just about every Terraria version there was (with some exceptions, like the alpha isn’t accessible for copyright-related reasons).

Even if Klei never intends to allow every version to be “easily” downpatched, having major versions between various arcs would be really cool, and just have a much more easily accessible way to go to various eras (either for novelty/nostalgia, or for easily accessible speedrun versions)

Also, Klei wouldn’t really lose anything from it…? The only thing they would really lose is just making the versions available in the first place, because said versions Already Exist. Given that they already did that for DS both for before and after the QoL update, that shouldn’t be too hard.

[lowercase skye]

19 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

The process described in the guide I linked worked for downloading the beta Toadstool patch (which was significantly older than the RoT beta), so in theory the process should be the exact same

I found the manifests here like linked in the guide, but weirdly, I can't seem to download from any of the betas at all. For example:

download_depot 322330 322331 6319603991782957989

This command should get me the first caves beta patch, but instead the console gives me a "(Access Denied)" error. Or...

download_depot 322330 322331 309599154272904669

This is supposed to be the first Turn of Tides beta patch, but again, Access Denied.

Meanwhile, if I try to download a non-beta patch, like the first main branch update that added caves, it starts downloading it just fine. Any idea what could be wrong?

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Guille6785 said:

Off the top of my head, I can't name any other games that do this

Barony

;

Terraria

Minecraft (This one is freaking loaded with choices, you can basically get any version)

And one more game I can't remember that had an older version for mod compatibility or something.

[Guille6785]

38 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

I found the manifests here like linked in the guide, but weirdly, I can't seem to download from any of the betas at all. For example:

download_depot 322330 322331 6319603991782957989

This command should get me the first caves beta patch, but instead the console gives me a "(Access Denied)" error. Or...

download_depot 322330 322331 309599154272904669

This is supposed to be the first Turn of Tides beta patch, but again, Access Denied.

Meanwhile, if I try to download a non-beta patch, like the first main branch update that added caves, it starts downloading it just fine. Any idea what could be wrong?

I don't think you're doing anything wrong, a quick google search seems to suggest this is an issue with steam depot in general: 

this is really unfortunate and all the more reason why Klei providing these versions themselves would be great, steam can just remove features like this at any moment

[CaptainChaotica]

Wait. Downpatching exists AND works, on DST. Does that...does that mean...

DOES THAT MEAN I CAN HAVE MY FREAKING RABBITS BACK???

Seriously, all I wanna do is unhappen the _one_ change that put in the !@#$ing Rabbit King. I'd take a mod. But that's the code piece that I most want gone, out of annoyance.

On a lighter note, it'd be nice to try WAY older versions of the game and see how much nostalgia I get. I'd kinda like to see the just-barely-came-out-of-beta twiggy tree design, again.

...Notorious

[Hollow soul 3]

Any% runs are fun to watch, so things that make that more accessible are pretty cool

[DegenerateFurry]

It'd largely be a waste of time. Aside from speedrunners and people who just want to do some one-off exploration of old versions, the only people this'd benefit is people who're waiting for their favorite mods to update to the latest patch (and even then, most mods don't break from updates, so waiting is rarely necessary). The latter two categories are both very short-lived and niche.

[FillerText]

8 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

Off the top of my head, I can't name any other games that do this, but I've been told Terraria has something similar, and I assume Minecraft does as well (otherwise idk how their speedrun leaderboards are full of people on every patch imaginable, but I might need correction on this). Personally, while I don't mind playing on current patch most of the time, sometimes the live service nature of DST makes every time a new update comes out a stressful event since Klei inevitably end up changing existing mechanics for better or for worse, but I'm curious to see other people's opinions.

I saw Dead Cells do downpatching via using the same steam tab Klei uses for public betas. This is also something Klei themselves did with the singleplayer game after the QoL update(At least I think so).

1 hour ago, DegenerateFurry said:

It'd largely be a waste of time. Aside from speedrunners and people who just want to do some one-off exploration of old versions, the only people this'd benefit is people who're waiting for their favorite mods to update to the latest patch (and even then, most mods don't break from updates, so waiting is rarely necessary). The latter two categories are both very short-lived and niche.

It is a waste of time only under a point of view that people just can't dislike an update.

There are games in my library, that I no longer play specifically because of updates tampering with things that made me play the game in the first place.

I hadn't played Ultrakill or Risk of Rain 2 because of the recent updates. Ultrakill's new visuals are very hard on my eyes along with simply making me feel sick. If I were to play Ultrakill right now, I would probably have to take multiple breaks inbetween my play session. It has become an exhausting task I have to take breaks from. Risk of Rain 2 is just too buggy to be properly playable in the first place. 

An update that people dislike is simply an inevitable event I've seen being often caused by changing dev teams, new publishers, or just bold gameplay changes/balance updates. Downpatching is just a very useful damage control tool for players, and gives them more options to have fun with the game. Downpatching is only a waste of time in an absolutrly perfect world.

[Cheggf]

2 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

It'd largely be a waste of time. Aside from speedrunners and people who just want to do some one-off exploration of old versions, the only people this'd benefit is people who're waiting for their favorite mods to update to the latest patch (and even then, most mods don't break from updates, so waiting is rarely necessary). The latter two categories are both very short-lived and niche.

It's not like this is some MOBA where they would have to basically remake the game and set up a bunch of servers running that branch. Guille just said the older versions already work out of the box, all they'd have to do is take the files that they already have (even if they deleted them they could just download them the same way we can) and push them onto beta branches or something. I don't know how it is developers set up beta branches, but I imagine it would be less than an hour of work. 

[Chewabacca]

While this is a live-service game, I didn't buy this game for the promise of future updates, I bought it for the game that existed as it already was. That's not to say that the updates since then have been bad, but I definitely would want a way to return it to closer to the version that I paid for in case I don't like future changes.

[Well-met]

19 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

When Terraria announced “Undeluxe Edition” (version 1.0.6, AKA before hardmode) as a playable version via a steam beta branch as a pseudo-april fools joke, people universally praised the ability to revert to an old version, so much so they added additional branches for other versions before major releases (one before 1.2, and one before 1.3). This isn’t accounting for the community-made downpatcher to allow you to go between just about every Terraria version there was (with some exceptions, like the alpha isn’t accessible for copyright-related reasons).

Even if Klei never intends to allow every version to be “easily” downpatched, having major versions between various arcs would be really cool, and just have a much more easily accessible way to go to various eras (either for novelty/nostalgia, or for easily accessible speedrun versions)

Also, Klei wouldn’t really lose anything from it…? The only thing they would really lose is just making the versions available in the first place, because said versions Already Exist. Given that they already did that for DS both for before and after the QoL update, that shouldn’t be too hard.

if you think game developers would happily, deliberately steer their audience away from their update efforts (99% people will downgrade because they aren't happy with a new update, not because they are curious) under the guise of convenience, this is very much undermining their work on the live build.

Legacy branches mostly exist for debugging and to minimize complaints (even valve has started doing this), but it's not something a dev would be proud of, if anything it's a permanent testament to their failure with whatever caused the complaints.

Sure it would be super useful from any modder's perspective but from a dev perspective it would be hell especially as they now end up having to ask bug reporters on which of the X versions they were playing at the time of the report. Mods already give them countless headaches in this regard I'll never imagine they want to exponentionally increase the mess.

for the record I have nothing against this idea but I don't think it's happening.

[Yuuko]

53 minutes ago, Well-met said:

if you think game developers would happily, deliberately steer their audience away from their update efforts (99% people will downgrade because they aren't happy with a new update, not because they are curious) under the guise of convenience, this is very much undermining their work on the live build.

If 99% of their players would downgrade to dodge an update, the devs should recognize how bad the update is.

Sounds like good feedback to me.

The other option when a game turns for the worst is the players just quit. It's not like dst is the only game out there, I haven't loaded it up myself in a long time.

Would I come back for this? Hard to say.

It would give me a place to enjoy the fun parts of the game that have been axed, and at least keep the game in rotation in case something changes I might be interested in. 

[Cassielu]

I would like to have access to older versions in the beta branch so that I can do some data mining and update content archaeology.

Currently steam console can only access older versions in the public branch.

[Primalflower]

I am particular, but I would love to go way far back in DST history so I can interact with the old menu UI again. I loved it when it was grayscale with the papery buttons. Stuff we have now is alright, but, I really do miss that particular look.

[DVGMedia]

1 minute ago, Primalflower said:

I am particular, but I would love to go way far back in DST history so I can interact with the old menu UI again. I loved it when it was grayscale with the papery buttons. Stuff we have now is alright, but, I really do miss that particular look.

There is still a mod to change the ui back.  Idk if you are console or not. But the mod Hybrid crafting menu allows you to swap between the old crafting and the new crafting.

[Primalflower]

8 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

There is still a mod to change the ui back.  Idk if you are console or not. But the mod Hybrid crafting menu allows you to swap between the old crafting and the new crafting.

That's not what i'm talking about, I think i would (personally) probably die if i had to deal with old crafting again for any extended period. I just mean graphical junk mostly, in the main menus and stuff

I find this particular graphical style so cute